I don't know how apropos this is to announce, at a moment when Mr.
Berger is, in fact, speaking in the same location on the subject of
warming -- it's just too -- President Clinton will host the White House
Conference on Climate Change: The Challenge of Global Warming, at
Georgetown University's Gaston Auditorium on Monday, October 6th.

That's not global warming at Gaston Auditorium, that's global
warming. And it's not related to Sandy Berger's speech going on at the
same location right now -- which is on Bosnia.

The Vice President and a number of Cabinet members will join the
President in representing the administration. Invited participants will
include scientists, economists, corporate executives, environmental
civic labor leaders, small business owners, members of Congress and
representatives of state and local governments. It will be broadcast by
satellite to several dozen locations around the country.

Q Is going to invite, Mike any scientists who believe that
cyclical sun changes might be responsible for this or only folks who
believe --

Q So you will only have scientists who believe in the President's
side.

MR. MCCURRY: It's not a President's side versus another side.
There's a consensus by leading scientists, widespread in the academic
community, that there's measurable impact. And the question is, what
are we going to do about it.

Q It's not a consensus if you have folks who hold an opposing
view.

MR. MCCURRY: Let's not argue. If you want to go be on a panel at
the Heritage Foundation, you can. The goals of the conference are to
improve the understanding of climate change among the American people
and inform them of the development of U.S. policy to address this
challenging problem, and the conference will include panels covering
scientific, technological, economic, international aspects of climate
change, and one to the degree there is uncertainty about the measurable
scientific effect that can be thoroughly explored. And we'll have more
information on that next week.

I think some of you have seen the -- have we put out the paper
from the advisory board?

MR. TOIV: No, we're waiting for --

MR. MCCURRY: Okay. The Race Advisory Board has some personnel
announcements they're making about people that they've added to their
effort that they're putting out, and they also announced that the next
meeting of the seven-member advisory board is scheduled for Tuesday,
September 30th, with the President attending at least part of that
meeting. That will be an opportunity for Dr. Franklin and Dr. Winston
to provide updates on what the board has been doing, talk about some of
their future activity and obviously it will be in the aftermath of the
President's speech Thursday at the anniversary at Central High.

Q Where will that be?

MR. MCCURRY: That will be at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. It
runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The President will be there sometime
late morning.

Q Mike, with regard to the race initiative, why does the President
feel that personal vignettes and anecdotes from his experience in
Arkansas will enrich his speech on Thursday?

MR. MCCURRY: I think that because the issue of race for all
Americans ultimately is a personal one, it involves interrelationships
that people have, how they view people of diverse circumstances, and the
President, as a native son of Arkansas, which went through that
emotional, wrenching period 40 years ago, has some thoughts. And his
attitudes today, certainly, as President were formed by the experiences
he had as a young man.

So it's not only relevant to the discussion that he now wants the
nation to entertain, but I think it also is relevant to the way he views
these issues in the prism through which he sees the issue of race in our
society. If you have not seen his little essay in one of the news
magazines this week, he talks a little bit more about that.

Q Mike, in Sandy Berger's talk about Bosnia, he seems to be
raising the stakes for continued NATO/U.S. presence past IFOR if things
are not stable by next June, by mentioning that what is at stake is
preventing a wider war in Europe, the credibility of NATO, the
credibility of U.S. leadership in Europe. Isn't that a strong signal
that IFOR is not going to be the last chapter?

MR. MCCURRY: He, elsewhere in that speech, Leo, as you know, says
the international community's engagement in Bosnia will continue, but
whether an international security presence is part of that engagement
and what role the United States might play remains to be decided. In
part, that decision will depend on where things stand as we approach the
time of SFOR's departure; it's a reiteration of what we've long said,
and he has not shifted the ground on the President's determination to
meet the timetable that has been outlined and, at the same time, focus
on the situation on the ground day in and day out until we reach that
point.

Q But he's going against the President's point of let's focus on
what's going on now. He is focusing on what's going to be the picture
in Bosnia and in Europe after June of next year, when he talks about the
possibility of a wider war, when he talks about NATO --

MR. MCCURRY: That is just not true. That is the reason we have
been there with these two deployments -- the IFOR deployment and SFOR
deployment -- in the first place. That's been a fundamental
underpinning of why we've become engaged and why we took on a leadership
role in the international community to both promulgate the Dayton
Accords and to deploy our own troops in furtherance of the aims of the
Dayton Accords.

Q So you're saying that the bottom line -- there is nothing new in
this speech.

MR. MCCURRY: I'm saying -- look, this is -- what it is, is a very
articulate and very extended argument that counters the --I call them
the cut-and-run crowd, what does Sandy call them in the speech?

COLONEL CROWLEY: Those who would give up on a multi-ethnic state.

MR. MCCURRY: He calls them something else. (Laughter.) No, he
had a better phrase than that. Anyhow, it's a direct response to those
that have said that somehow or other we can walk away from this
international tragedy and leave it to others to continue to do the work
of rebuilding civil society in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the aftermath of
the worst ethnic and military conflict in Europe since World War II.

Q Mike, what you just said, though, that we will reassess -- and
I'm not quoting you directly -- but as we get closer to next summer.
That, in itself, is different from what the President has insisted all
along, which is that we're gone.

MR. MCCURRY: That paragraph I read you has been the standard
guidance on that question for six, seven weeks now. It hasn't changed
one iota.

Q So just to clarify, we're now maybe staying beyond, if events
necessitate.

MR. MCCURRY: I've answered this same question, I'll answer it --
I'll go back and read to you the same answer I gave before, that we've
long said the international community is going to have some kind of
presence in Bosnia beyond June of 1998.

Q But you've also said that the intention of the United States is
to leave.

MR. MCCURRY: We have said that what that presence will be and
what the U.S. role in it might be will not be determined until we assess
what the situation on the ground is.

Q So how does that square with the promise to get American troops
out by the June deadline?

MR. MCCURRY: The SFOR deployment ends in June of 1998. The North
Atlantic Council's authorization for this deployment expires on June
1998. We have had this discussion, I assure you, at least two or three
times here before.

Q We're not talking about just this deployment. We're talking
about the continued presence of U.S. troops in some form and under some
mandate into the future.

MR. MCCURRY: That's not what the President is -- the President is
talking about an end to the SFOR mandate in June of 1998. What the
international presence is beyond that point has not even been a point of
discussion within the North Atlantic Council --

Q That's not true because we've asked the President --

Q That leaves open the possibility that there could be U.S.
troops there, doesn't it?

MR. MCCURRY: Look, I have not --

Q Doesn't it?

MR. MCCURRY: There's no shifting of ground here. Let me be very
clear about this. Sandy has repeated what the President has said and
indicated on this issue. He's answered the question himself -- we can
go back and dig up transcripts for you and there's no change in that
view.

Q Mike, when the President has answered this question, he has said
that it is the intent, it's the intention of the United States to have
American troops out of Bosnia by next summer. Is that still --

MR. MCCURRY: Absolutely. That's repeated by Mr. Berger in this
speech. That's what he just said.

Q In every forum.

MR. MCCURRY: Let's go on, something else.

Q What difference does it make if we replace new U.S. troops
there for the old U.S. troops? It doesn't make any difference to the
people back home what we call SFOR or IFOR or whatever it is.

MR. MCCURRY: It matters what the mission is, what they're doing
there, what the mission plan is, what the probability of success is,
what the exit strategy is -- none of those questions, which have been
addressed either by the United States through its own command authority
or in concert with our allies. It's a moot point.

Q You know very well that the bottom line for the American public
is going to be whether there are U.S. troops there and not under what
mandate.

MR. MCCURRY: Right. And the bottom line for the American people
is, we've got a lot of brave people in harm's way right now, and they
want to know what support are we giving them right now to do the job
they've been sent there to do by the United States.

Q And we want to know whether they're going to be there after
June.

MR. MCCURRY: No, we want to know, are we going to be able to get
the mission accomplished that they've been tasked to do, and that's
where the President's energy is and that's what the work is that we've
been doing.

Q Okay, so the priority is not --

MR. MCCURRY: Let's go on. I need to get something else on
another subject.

Q But the priority then is not to --

Q We've got a lot of time.

MR. MCCURRY: I don't.

Q -- the priority is not to get the troops out, the priority is to
get the job done?

MR. MCCURRY: The priority has been to accomplish the mission that
the troops have been sent there to do, as the President said. That's
why the President suggested, I'm not focused on a date in the future in
June of 1998, I'm focused on today and tomorrow and what those people
are doing to accomplish the mission that I've assigned to them.

Q Sounds like you're leaving the door open.

MR. MCCURRY: Look, I'm not saying -- I'll just say once again,
I'm not saying anything different from what the President himself has
already said. I would suggest you play his clip, not mine.

Q What now are the prospects, Mike, for getting that mission
accomplished by the June date?

MR. MCCURRY: They are covered at great length in Mr. Berger's
speech, and I commend it to your attention.

Q Is the President going to a gay dinner?

MR. MCCURRY: Have you got the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner
is October --

MR. LOCKHART: November 8th --

MR. MCCURRY: November 8th, and he is going, yes. I need to alert
you quickly to a letter that the President has sent Senator Lott and
Senator Daschle with copies to Senators McCain and Feingold, addressing
a concern that Senator Daschle very properly has about the sufficiency
of the time that the Senate Majority Leader has allocated to discussion
of campaign finance reform issues in the Senate. Senator Daschle's
concern, properly so, has been, is there going to be enough time for the
Senate to take this matter, seriously consider it, weather an
anticipated filibuster, and achieve final passage before the anticipated
congressional adjournment.

The President today has sent a letter to Senator Lott saying that
there should be that sufficient time and if in the view of senators that
time has not been made available to senators for consideration of this
issue, he will call a special session of Congress and bring them back so
they can complete work on this very necessary bill. We've got copies of
that letter ready to go; it's being addressed on the Hill right now by
Senator Daschle. I apologize for rushing to get to that, but I didn't
want to bury my lead.

Q Has he talked personally to Lott on the possibility?

MR. MCCURRY: He has not. Mr. Hilley has been in contact with
Senator Lott's staff and there has been extensive discussions on the
Hill on this subject, and the President is determined to see that this
issue is adequately addressed in this session prior to adjournment.

Q What would that entail, that special session? This purpose
only?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't think -- I think you can only call them back
-- he has to call them back into session with the stated purpose of
addressing this, but I think once Congress is in session they can
determine other matters that might be addressed.

Q Can they just then adjourn?

Q Yes, can he keep them in session then?

MR. MCCURRY: He can keep him in session. In fact, his letter
says he'll call on Congress to stay in session until all the critical
elements are fully considered. He clearly can also call them into
session as well.

Q And this is to pass the Senate finance --

MR. MCCURRY: This is to deal with what we anticipate will be a
revised version of the McCain-Feingold measure, one that would be
available to senators if they choose to act this year, now, on the
repeated call of the President and others to reform campaign finance
laws.

Q Mike, legally the President needs a congressional adjournment,
doesn't he, in order to call Congress back in a special session.

MR. MCCURRY: Right.

Q Couldn't Lott and Gingrich counter the plan for a special
session by merely recessing and, I believe under congressional rules,
just have a pro forma session of a minute or two every three days?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, they might. I'm not an expert on Senate
rules. They might attempt to do that, but I think there clearly is
sentiment in the Senate now to take up this legislation. And the
President believes that the letter that he has communicated is
sufficient to assure that there will be ample time for consideration of
the issue by the Senate.

It would be hard to imagine that in the face of the President's
call for action, his determination to see that the Senate acts on this
matter -- indeed, that Congress act on this matter -- that they would
resort to a gimmick in order to avoid taking a stand on campaign finance
reform.

Q Mike, I notice you've not said the President will keep the
Senate in session until there is a vote. Is there a reason for that?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, he wants them to stay there until they get the
job done, which is the vote, final passage, wrapping it up, of course.

Q The House Majority Leader Armey said today that he would put
fast track behind two other pieces of legislation --

MR. MCCURRY: Let's stay on this subject before we get on
something else.

Q It's in this context. There was the article where Ickes was
quoted as saying that the President doesn't really care very much about
campaign finance reform and he's using it for political purposes.

MR. MCCURRY: He did not say that and he is not quoted saying
that. And I've talked to Mr. Ickes, and if you call and ask him he'll
say that he's never had a conversation in which the President expressed
that sentiment to him. Frankly --

Q It is quoted as --

MR. MCCURRY: He's not directly quoted saying that the President
doesn't have a concern about campaign finance reform.

Q What did he mean?

MR. MCCURRY: He was talking about the broad sweep of the
President's priorities and what mattered most to him. And he believes
that he's been inaccurately interpreted by the author of the article.
He called me to point that out to me and draw that to my attention -- to
tell you that.

Q Mike, does the President want Lott to give him a date now, to
give him a date certain? I mean, Lott has said he wants a date certain,
but he's kind of informally said, well, I'll do it in October.

MR. MCCURRY: Senator Daschle's concern has been that there was
not a date certain. Senator Daschle, I believe, is addressing this
matter right now. I believe he will consider it sufficient that the
President can use his constitutional authority to keep Congress in
session to assure that there will be ample time for consideration.
Senator Daschle's concern will be that this might come up in the last
one or two days of the Congressional session; there wouldn't be ample
time to debate, consider, and pass the measure in question.

Q So what do you want Lott to do? Do you want Lott to announce a
date?

MR. MCCURRY: The President is saying that if any attempt is made
to bring this bill up in a manner that would preclude sufficient time,
I'll call on Congress to stay in session until all of these critical
elements are fully considered. He can thus assure that they will stay
here in Washington to finish the job.

Q And this applies to the House as well as the Senate, or just
Senate consideration?

MR. MCCURRY: The letter is addressed to the Senate, so it relates
to Senate consideration. But there is sentiment in the House, as you
know, to take up the bill and Senate passage has -- the prospect of
Senate passage has led some members of the House to indicate that they
would push for consideration in the House of campaign reform legislation
this year, which, of course, we would strongly encourage.

Q Is the President basically saying that if there is no passage
this year no matter when they bring it up, he will keep the Senate in
session until there is passage?

MR. MCCURRY: He's saying he will keep them in session so that
they can duly consider the bill. We understand that -- what we've said
all along is we want to see people take an up or down vote on this to
see where they are. We believe it will be passed. We think there is a
majority sentiment in both places.

We can't tell Congress what to do; our Constitution doesn't work
that way. But we can keep them here until there is adequate time for
members of the Senate to be recorded yea or nay on the measure.

Q Mike, is this an attempt by the President to sort of take the
monkey of campaign finance problems off his own back and put it on
Lott's? (Laughter.)

MR. MCCURRY: No, this is an attempt to continue to advance the
measure we've been talking about and pressing all year long.

Q So the White House supports Daschle's tactics today as far as
trying to make the --

MR. MCCURRY: We certainly understand Senator Daschle's concern
about this measure, but I think the President has acted through this
letter to help resolve some of his concerns in a way that can allow the
business of the Senate to proceed.

Q Have you heard anything back from Lott? I mean, did you consult
with him, let him know this was coming?

MR. MCCURRY: He's had the letter for a while and he knew it was
coming, and I think he knew that we would make it public.

Q For a while? Like how long?

MR. MCCURRY: Earlier today.

MR. LOCKHART: Late this morning.

MR. MCCURRY: Late this morning.

Q And do you have any reaction back from him?

MR. MCCURRY: I should leave it to the Majority Leader to speak.
It's his chamber.

Q If you keep the Senate in, you have to have the House in there
as well.

MR. MCCURRY: You have to keep Congress in, correct.

Q When was the last time a President called a special session?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know the history of that. I would have to
do some research.

Q Whose idea was it to write this letter? Was it done at the
instigation of Daschle?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, we have been consulting closely with the
proponents of campaign finance reform to see what the President can do
to lend some momentum to their cause, so it grew out of those
conversations.

Q Mike, the President has been having a hard time with Congress on
some of his other priorities. Does he consider that he's spending a
tremendous amount of political capital in making this threat and he
might anger them further? What kind of thought went into that?

MR. MCCURRY: The thought that went into consideration of this
issue is that it's our estimation that more than a majority of the
Congress wants to proceed with campaign finance reform. It's only been
killed in the past because a small minority filibustered the
legislation. Senators McCain and Feingold have now reasonably addressed
some of the concerns other senators have. They've tried to fashion a
measure that, while it's not necessarily everything that the President
would want to see in a campaign finance reform bill, will present the
prospect of gaining swift action in Congress. And the President wanted
to lend his support to their efforts.

But we believe there is majority sentiment to do so in Congress,
so we're not at all concerned that we will anger the bulk of Congress.
We might anger those who have intended to filibuster this measure to try
to drag things out or somehow or other slip out of town without taking a
recorded vote, but so be it.

Q You just said "recorded vote"; is that what you're insisting on?
That's the bottom line?

MR. MCCURRY: The letter just wants --

Q We don't have the letter.

MR. MCCURRY: The letter -- provide sufficient time for debate, is
our key goal, but we believe that sufficient time for debate obviously
includes a recorded vote yea or nay on the measure.

Q Mike, given the memos that have been reported in the newspapers
in the last couple of days, does the President have any better
recollection of whether he made any fundraising phone calls?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know that he has reviewed that. It has not
been reported to me by Counsel he's taken time to review those measures,
but those memos would be immaterial in any event.

Q There was an article by the Deputy Attorney General, former
Deputy Attorney General, quite critical of Janet Reno's legal reasoning
in this issue and the distinction she made between hard and soft money.
Is that something the White House agrees with?

MR. MCCURRY: The White House view is that the law in question has
not been broken, as the President said yesterday, and it's pretty clear
it hasn't been broken. It's a law that's never been enforced. It's
over a century old. It was written at a time when there weren't
telephones, and the only time it's been tested in the courts, the
judgment of the courts has been that it goes to the question of where
the person being solicited is located and not where the person doing the
solicitation is.

It's interesting that people get all exercised about something
that's not that significant.

Q Mike, why are the memos immaterial?

MR. MCCURRY: For the reason I just said.

Q Isn't that kind of a technical distinction that you just made,
because actually the spirit of the law was to prevent abuses of power.
The President calls up somebody --

MR. MCCURRY: No, the spirit of the law was to prevent Bill
Clinton from walking down the hall into my office and shaking me down
for $1,000. That's why the law was written; it was so that you couldn't
solicit from federal employees on federal property.

Q Can I clarify one thing related to this? When the President
said that he's confident that he has honored the letter of the law, who
gave him that advice? Who gave him the --

MR. MCCURRY: These were all asked and answered yesterday. I'll
refer you to yesterday's transcript.

Q Mike, would the White House like to see how members of Congress
have abided by this Pendleton Act also?

MR. MCCURRY: Senator Phil Gramm has acknowledged that he violated
this statute, and the Justice Department, I believe, has said that they
examined the question and didn't prosecute. They've never prosecuted
anyone under the statute. That's correct, right? I mean, Gramm says
that he made calls from the Senate building.

Q What's your source of that? We've had a little trouble running
that down, the Gramm thing, and he denies that now.

MR. MCCURRY: I should have prefaced that by saying I had been
told that by the people working the issue and I'll see what their
citation is on it.

Q Mike, related to my question, I'm told that that wasn't answered
yesterday. And could you repeat it, or whatever you think was answered
yesterday?

MR. MCCURRY: I did everything -- I said yesterday I was not going
to interpret the President's comments yesterday. They're clear, they
speak for themselves, and I don't have a lot to add to it. I mean, the
President is clear that he did not violate the law. The White House is
clear he didn't violate the law. And in due course the people who have
to look at this matter will come to that conclusion and we can move on
to other work -- like passing campaign finance reform.

Q It was completely explored through the Counsel's Office before
he would have made any calls?

MR. MCCURRY: I'm not going to describe the work the Counsel's
Office is doing. But the President had a great deal of confidence in
the statement he made yesterday, of course.

Q When the Vice President said that he was advised, who advised
him?

MR. MCCURRY: I'm not going to get into that. That's business
between the President and his attorneys.

Q Why wouldn't you want to get into it if you know you could just
clear it up?

MR. MCCURRY: Because I don't know. I was not a participant in
those discussions and I imagine they're discussions in which, despite
some court rulings, there are some attorney/client privileges that
extend. So I'm not going to detail the legal work product that goes
into statements. I think they are clear and they speak to the issue.

Q So, Mike, are you saying that if the Attorney General takes a
non-political, reasoned look at this, she'll --

MR. MCCURRY: Yes, as opposed to being badgered by editorial
writers and by Republican members of Congress. People should just give
her the space to look at the law and make the right decision. So it's
not free from --

Q Do you think she is being badgered now?

MR. MCCURRY: It's hard to pick up a newspaper and not see her
being badgered or listen to some members of Congress and see her being
pressured. The whole point of this exercise is to allow independence to
prevail -- contrary to the independence suggested in the whole process,
to allow political pressure to be brought by people who, for partisan
reasons, oppose the President to -- you know, people have threatened to
impeach her. That's about as much pressure as one could bring, I would
imagine.

Q Mike, if the White House view is that the Pendleton Act doesn't
cover this kind of thing, should the law cover this kind of thing? Does
the President support --

MR. MCCURRY: What the law should do is to allow for campaigns to
proceed, for fundraising to be regulated, and the way it would be
regulated under the McCain-Feingold measure and for the law to be
changed the way we are already trying to get the law changed. I just
told you some things that the President is doing today to try to move
campaign finance reform forward in the Congress. That's the law that
ought to be written.

Q So the law should, in the White House then, continue to allow
fundraising calls to be made from --

MR. MCCURRY: Let's make sure everyone is clear here: we are not
calling for taxpayers to pay for campaigns. Right? And we're not
calling for public financing of our campaigns. We're not asking
taxpayers to pay for congressional campaigns, for other campaigns, say,
national, general election presidential campaigns.

That being the case, there's going to be fundraising. Presidents,
as head of their political parties, are going to have to do fundraisers.
And they ought to be regulated. They ought to be regulated under the
terms of the kind of reform measure that the President is now
advocating, has been advocating.

Q And should it continue to be legal, in the White House view, for
fundraising to continue to take place from government offices?

MR. MCCURRY: It should continue to be legal -- look, yes, it
should be legal. I think there's some desire on the part of some people
in this debate to make it illegal for the President and Vice President
of the United States to raise money. It should not be illegal for the
President and Vice President of the United States to raise money to
further the political work of their parties.

Q From the White House.

Q Including by telephone calls from --

MR. MCCURRY: It's interesting, you're all stunned by that, but
that's kind of where we've moved this debate right now.

Q From the White House, is the point, from the Oval Office, from
the White House, it should continue to be legal for them to --

MR. MCCURRY: I'm saying it should be -- look, they should
continue to have in place the kind of laws that let them to do their
work as heads of their political parties that they need to do. And it
should not be reduced to absurdities.

Q But, I'm sorry, the point we're trying to press you on is
whether you consider it reducing it to absurdity to rule out the use of
their offices to raise money, their physical offices.

MR. MCCURRY: I think they should be allowed to raise money in the
fashion that they have raised it. They've raised it, and raised it
effectively, but it ought to be regulated so they have to spend less
time doing it.

Q Including the President from the Oval Office --

MR. MCCURRY: He's raised money lawfully. The President has no --
I don't have any change in the answer he has about calls and so forth.

Q Any President from the Oval Office phone?

MR. MCCURRY: I think we should pass McCain-Feingold. Let's move
on to another subject.

Q Mike, in April of last year the President launched with the
Japanese Prime Minister a review of defense guidelines between the U.S.
and Japan.

MR. MCCURRY: Yes.

Q That review came out today, it was released in New York. It
didn't seem to include anything new in the way of Japanese commitments
towards helping U.S. forces --

MR. MCCURRY: We are getting further information on it based on
the meetings that Secretaries Albright and Cohen had today, but they've
addressed that at some great length now in New York, so I think I will
defer comment to them.

Q Going back to earlier, House Majority Leader Armey said that he
wanted to put fast track behind two other pieces of legislation --
school choice and how you take the census. And he also said that it
wasn't important even to pass it this year. Are you disappointed in his
comments?

MR. MCCURRY: I think we attach a much greater priority to giving
the President the authority he needs to move free trade agreements
forward. They've been a fundamental part of the President's economic
strategy to grow the economy and that strategy has been working. And
the President, very shortly, next month, is going to be in conversations
with other governments that are anxious to pursue free and fair trade
with the United States, and having that authority to negotiate
agreements is important, or at least it will be in a region in which
that is an issue that is of great importance, and we attach much greater
priority to it. But we certainly will try to move forward despite the
concerns that he has expressed.

Q Is the President hoping to sway some minds at the AFL-CIO about
fast track, or did the two sides agree they were going to disagree?

MR. MCCURRY: Probably not. I think that he's going to point out
a lot of the areas in which we work in common with organized labor and
representatives of working people, and he's going to make the point that
free and open trade has been part of what has given this economy a very
strong boost over the last four and a half years and part of what has
been responsible for increasing wage income of working families, and
that that needs to remain a central element of our economic growth
strategy for the future, and that if we have to disagree on that
subject, we should just disagree amicably in the spirit of friendship
that exists between the President, his party, and the representatives of
labor.

Q Is he going to ask them not to spend the members' money to try
and quell his --

MR. MCCURRY: He's going to address the importance he attaches to
free trade, and he's going to call for them to try to keep an open mind
towards those who are customarily in great support of the interests and
needs of working people in this country and suggests that on not that
single issue should all members of Congress be judged.

Q How does he read Mr. Sweeney's call for a ban on soft money?

MR. MCCURRY: That's, in effect, what even the revised version of
McCain-Feingold would do. So given the President's strong support for
that measure, he obviously welcomes the support that's been expressed
for that position by the AFL-CIO.

Q Can I just -- on fast track. Does the President have
commitments from the leadership of both the House and the Senate to
bring it this year? Do you have firm commitments to try to get fast
track to the Floor this year?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't think we have -- we don't have firm
commitments to get it to the floor this year, but we certainly would
entertain those if they were offered.

Q Is the White House opposed to floor consideration of Bud
Shuster's ISTEA proposal?

MR. MCCURRY: I'll have to check. Do we have a Shuster version of
ISTEA, or whichever version -- there are about six or seven versions --
we've got our own bill.

MR. TOIV: We opposed the bill.

MR. MCCURRY: We opposed the bill. We have our own version of the
bill. We would prefer to bring our bill to the floor. I'm not sure
whether we've got any statement of administration policy on that
measure. Is that the committee-passed bill?

MR. MCCURRY: We, for all the reasons I think is already in our
statement of administration policy, we see the committee bill as being a
violation of the balanced budget agreement and, therefore, we need a
substantial modification before the President would see it as an
acceptable piece of legislation.

Q Back on campaign finance, is the President confident that no
members of the DNC or his campaign were involved in improperly
funnelling money to the Teamster's election?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know that the President has addressed that
question, and the DNC has spoken to that and I think our Counsel has
spoken to the degree in which we've had any knowledge of our engagement
in that issue. I'll have to refer back to what they've said on that.

Q I'm wondering if he's concerned about it to have asked that it
be looked into.

MR. MCCURRY: I'm not aware that there is anything that has been
alleged that would suggest there is something we should look into, but
I'll check it with our Counsel and see if we've seen anything on that.

Q Would you clarify something for me? A few months ago the DNC
issued new guidelines about soft money -- no contributions over $100,000
and so forth. At that time, did the party say that it would stop
raising soft money if the Republicans would also stop raising soft money
in the meantime? And did the President agree with that, and is that
still operative?

MR. MCCURRY: That offer still stands, and it was said, if I'm not
mistaken, the day after the election by Chairman Dodd. The first
challenge was put to Chairman Haley Barbour by Chairman Dodd, either the
day or the following day after the election, and said let's agree that
we should get out of the soft money business, and if the Republican
Party will join us, so that we don't have to unilaterally disarm, we
would stop raising soft money. And that --

Q Sometimes the President should take an initiative.

MR. MCCURRY: Well, Helen, we are -- look at the figures in the
paper. We're already being seriously out-raised by the Republican
Party, and we happen to believe -- we happen to believe with what we
stand for, and what our party stands for, and we believe in our
candidates and what they advocate, and we want to run good campaigns for
them and we want to run competitive campaigns.

And it might sound swell to get on a high moral ground and sort of
say, yes, we're going to foreswear soft money, but then we'd see a lot
of our candidates lose. We know what happens when they go out and
attack candidates. We saw that happen in 1998 and -- I'm sorry, it
happened in 1994. We know what happens when people can amass huge
campaign war chests to go after members of Congress who are
under-financed.

And that's why there's going to be fundraising. And we ought to
have a system of campaign finance laws that work and not laws that don't
work. And did the Republicans ever -- yes, they formally said that they
are not entertaining that because they believe in soft money. They want
to raise it -- there's something to that effect, and you have to -- I
saw Chairman Nicholson -- who said that?

MR. TOIV: Nicholson.

MR. MCCURRY: Nicholson, yes. Nicholson has repeatedly, any time
he's asked that in television interviews, just said, well, no, they're
not going to get out of the soft money game because they believe it's
ok.

Q Mike, are you saying that the switch in control of Congress in
'94 was mainly a function of money?

MR. MCCURRY: In part. It was large part of it. It was people
amassing war chests, special interests going after people who voted very
often with the President on certain issues. Yes.

Q Mike on the AFL-CIO, is the President concerned about these
reports that McAuliffe helped clinch a deal that gave the AFL a $50
million signing bonus on this credit card program?

MR. MCCURRY: We just did a series of questions on that. I
clearly will have to check will Counsel in order to answer that
question. We already did that. Yes.

Q What's the administration sense from the Hill at this point, is
it still possible that the House will act on it by the time of the
President's trip?

MR. MCCURRY: It's still possible they will act this year. It's
important that they at least consider doing so, and we continue to press
the case very strongly, yes.

Q By the time of the President's trip?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, we hope we could get it done by then.

Q Mike, does the President have a read on -- even though they were
truncated by Senator Daschle's actions -- the IRS hearings that Senator
Roth has been conducting today --

MR. MCCURRY: He's got a lot of confidence in Secretary Rubin.
Secretary Rubin has addressed this issue at great length. There have
been a number of reforms undertaken at Treasury to assure that the
Internal Revenue Service performs in a way that's more friendly to the
primary customer involved -- the U.S. taxpayer. And the President would
expect that those necessary kinds of reforms continue, and any evidence
of abuse or aggressive or egregious behavior be dealt with firmly by
Treasury officials. But there's every indication that's what Secretary
of Treasury Rubin is doing, and they have been in a position to comment
at much greater length on the whole question.

Q Can you come back to the Human Rights Campaign dinner? They're
saying that this is the first time a sitting President has ever
addressed a gay and lesbian civil rights --

MR. MCCURRY: I'd have to check. I don't know for a fact that
that's true. I can't recall a previous occasion, but it's one that the
President looks forward to and he has worked closely with members of the
fund and members of that community on issues that are of primary concern
in the gay and lesbian community. But those are very extensive; they
run a whole gamut of issues across policy issues because that community
is actively involved in a number of pursuits. And the President looks
forward to having the opportunity to do it. I think that he's not been
able to do it in previous years from schedule conflicts, but he is
looking forward to being there.

Q Doesn't it tend to send a signal if, in fact, this is a
precedent? I mean, if this is a --

MR. MCCURRY: I just told you, I don't even know if it is a
precedent, so I doubt it's a signal. But I think it's an important
occasion the President's delighted to be able to attend.

Q Also on -- is there some sense in the administration that it may
be Republican hostility to this proposal might have been underestimated?
And is there any plans for the President to get personally involved with
Republicans like he did with Democrats?

MR. MCCURRY: He's been heavily involved already personally and
has pressed this privately with some Republican members. And, no,
there's a sense that this was going to be a tough issue all along, but
as we indicated or you heard me indicate the other day, we've heard a
lot of disagreement from the opposite side of the political spectrum,
too.

So we are pretty confident that we've got to -- a free trade
negotiating authority that rests right in the center where the American
people are and which will continue the economic benefits that derive to
Americans from having free and open trade relations around the world.

Q But, Mike, neither the House or the Senate is likely to vote on
the President's proposal as written.

MR. MCCURRY: That's always true of any proposal we send, because
Congress is in the hands of the Republican Party. But on the other
hand, we've fashioned an approach that we think will be very attractive
as they wrestle with the issues the way we wrestle with the issues. And
they may even, in fact, come back to some of the provisions that we deal
with and of course, this is going to -- it will be a long way before we
reach the legislative finish line.

Q Mike, while you were away, the Black Farmers Association was out
in Lafayette Park yesterday protesting, again, saying that they don't
think they're getting enough help from the Department of Agriculture in
settling outstanding litigation and cleaning up the "vast
discrimination," as they put it, in terms of getting loans and other
types of help. Do you see the President getting out front on that issue
and --

MR. MCCURRY: He has had the opportunity to talk with Secretary
Glickman about that issue and does consider it an important one. He has
been assured by Secretary Glickman that all those things that he has
talked about publicly they are proceeding with. They are doing a lot at
the Department. And, if I'm not mistaken, some of the people who were
here registering their concern met with Assistant Secretary Reed at the
Department of Agriculture and we'll continue to follow the conversations
the Department is having.

I think Secretary Glickman, as a matter of high priority, has
taken on the issue of addressing equity issues in farming, particularly
with respect to black farmers and the provision of credit; and most
importantly in the instances of discrimination that some rural black
farmers have clearly suffered from. And the President expects the
Secretary to proceed vigorously with those efforts at reform.

Q Was the President consulted on the elimination of this top job
at the Pentagon -- international security, I believe.

MR. MCCURRY: I'd have to check and see. I believe that was a
reorganization effort undertaken by Secretary Cohen. I'm not aware that
it reached consideration here, but the NSC staff can double-check for
you if there's anything further on that.

Q Mike, what's the timeframe for the President's proposals for the
tobacco deal to be turned into legislation?

MR. MCCURRY: The timetable?

Q Yes.

MR. MCCURRY: Well, there will be -- we hope that the
consideration can begin in short order -- I kind of expect it already
is. There are already hearings on some aspects of the proposed
settlement that had been underway and that will continue. And we hope
that as we move into 1998 there can be careful and early consideration
of the package. But it's too early to predict what the exact timetable
will be.

Q Will the President craft a bill? Are you going to sign on to
someone else's legislation?

MR. MCCURRY: We've already indicated we think that will be an
evolutionary process that evolves out of the conversations and
consultations that we've already had on the Hill, that we will continue
to have -- that we are continuing to have now and that we will have into
the future.

Q Does that mean that you haven't decided who's going to do it
yet?

MR. MCCURRY: No, that means that it's -- there are a lot of
jurisdictional issues up on the Hill that are going to have to be
resolved. We're going to have to work closely with the people who are
designated by the leaderships in both Houses to take on the issue and
take on various segment parts of the bill. And there are going to have
to be some other conversations, frankly, with some of the stake-holders
in the process, particularly those from the industry -- all sooner or
later and ultimately will wind up as legislation that we believe will be
embraced by a strong bipartisan majority in both Houses.

Q Has the President talked to Dick Morris yet?

Q Does the White House have a comment on the Federal Trade
Commission report on the tobacco deal?

MR. MCCURRY: I haven't heard him comment on it, but there have
been various administration people who have.

Q Also yesterday at the farmers protest, former Secretary Espy was
present and asked him on the record whether he was getting any sort of
help from the administration. He says he continues to get help from his
friends at the White House. What kind of help is he getting?

MR. MCCURRY: I have no idea. I don't know what he meant.

Q I mean, considering he's under indictment and so forth, I mean,
he's still getting help and support. What kind of help is he getting?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know. Spiritual help, perhaps. What did
you just ask?

Q Dick Morris, did he talk to him?

MR. MCCURRY: Not that I heard reported to me. He was down in the
Orchestra seats and -- (laughter.)

Q Is he going to have a hostile audience in Pittsburgh? I mean,
he's going to hit the issue hard --

MR. MCCURRY: We hope not. I mean, look, we've worked with
AFL-CIO --

Q They think they lose jobs, and how can he --

MR. MCCURRY: We think they're wrong on that point. We think that
free and open trade creates jobs, creates wealth, has created a stronger
American economy and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the world, and
that over time will result in better, higher-paying jobs for exactly
those members that organized labor represents.

So we just beg to differ. But if he's looked at how many things
we've worked together with Labor on, most of the time the Republicans
are yelling at us because they say we're too close to organized labor.
So I don't know why we would go in there thinking that it's Daniel in
the lion's den tomorrow.

Q Mike, confirming reports out of Tallahassee, has the President
settled on Florida State Senator Darrell Jones as the new Secretary of
the Air Force?

MR. MCCURRY: Have we done anything on that? No. There's been no
decision on that and no announcement on that.

Q Mike, anything else today on?

MR. MCCURRY: No, I think the President's out and about. He's got
nothing on the calendar. And you guys know what's going on for
tomorrow. Can we move any paper?

MR. LOCKHART: We'll check right away.

MR. MCCURRY: We've got the letter that I mentioned to you that we
can release to you, and beyond that, we'll be ready to go.